Ultimate Home Data Center

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BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
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The property directly north of that one is also a miniature datacenter/telco hub. You can see the 3 phase power power feeds and extensive fiber cabling from the street. Has a similar exterior look with fake windows and a hazmat sign on the gate (which presumably is for the diesel or fire suppression system). They both look like McMansions compared to the surrounding homes and stick out as this part of Dallas isn't the most affluent. AT&T used to this property. Not sure about the adjacent one.
 
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frogtech

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Jan 4, 2016
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So why does this look like a house on the outside, is it for security through obscurity?
 
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cesmith9999

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Mar 26, 2013
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a lot of CO (Central Office) look like normal houses on the outside and have a DC on the inside. there are several in my neighbor hood. you can usually spot them because the lawn is mowed to perfection.

Chris
 
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Samir

Post Liker and Deal Hunter Extraordinaire!
Jul 21, 2017
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a lot of CO (Central Office) look like normal houses on the outside and have a DC on the inside.
How does this end up happening? Just happens to be where all the cable ends up?

There was a 'shared office space' place I was looking at that used to be the hub for an ISP so they still had A LOT of fibre terminating in the building and basically every person renting an office got their own 1Gb Internet connection for free--and this was back in like 2005. :D
 

Fritz

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Apr 6, 2015
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i just looked at the google street view. It's actually funny that the facade looks much fancier than the surrounding houses in the neighborhood.
Yes it does. Reminds of a house I once saw in Asheville, N.C. A mansion in the ghetto. I figured some lucky redneck musta won the lottery. :p
 
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Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Someone sent me this video last year. Fake facades of Paris

If you watch how things are blended into a Parisian cityscape this will make total sense.

Again, if this was in Austin, TX instead of Dallas, I would have bought it today. The bigger question is how does one find these when they hit the market?
 

BlueFox

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You can find that in California too actually. Beverly Hills sits on a reasonably sized active oil field (as do other parts of LA County). As no one wants to see drilling equipment, pumps, or tanks in the middle of the city, they're hidden in soundproofed buildings.
 

tinfoil3d

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May 11, 2020
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I just got back from the beaches of bora bora and this house has more long term fun potential and is cheaper. :D
Samir, you're mistaking rent and ownership. It's like comparing renting 80G A100 for a LONG PERIOD on aws/gc versus owning it. Of course cloud is always gonna be more expensive for such applications! lol
 
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WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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Ah
Someone sent me this video last year. Fake facades of Paris

If you watch how things are blended into a Parisian cityscape this will make total sense.

Again, if this was in Austin, TX instead of Dallas, I would have bought it today. The bigger question is how does one find these when they hit the market?
Ah yes, The Tim Traveller - his videos are usually Parisian based and fun-as-hell to watch. He also did a video on the hidden/disguised Swiss fortresses. That’s a life goal right there - a Swiss chalet with antitank guns and artillery.


Now if only I am in a life of crime (or inherited one) I would totally make the Swiss Federal council an offer that they couldn't refuse...
 
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thetoad

Active Member
Feb 10, 2021
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reminds me of the sale listing that went around a while back that started off as a normal house, till one got to the included jail.
 
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thetoad

Active Member
Feb 10, 2021
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How does this end up happening? Just happens to be where all the cable ends up?

There was a 'shared office space' place I was looking at that used to be the hub for an ISP so they still had A LOT of fibre terminating in the building and basically every person renting an office got their own 1Gb Internet connection for free--and this was back in like 2005. :D
phone company need(ed/s?) equipment near peoples homes, so one ends up with "central offices" in residential areas. i.e. DSL can only run a certain distance, if too far from the central office, you couldn't get DSL.
 
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tinfoil3d

QSFP28
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Incidentally I've never had to deal with DSL, started off at dial-up and went straight up to ethernet-based access, many years later. It always sounded like a lot of fun.
Actually imagine being a person in a countryside who's still using dial-up, living right next to a fiber cable going to the cell tower. Oh, that's gotta be almost every other person on this planet! I'm not having fun of anyone, it's just so unfair we still have these stone age technologies being relied on as THE ONLY way to get online in a countries that are called "developed".
 
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